Follow on funding
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Vashti Berry - Exeter University Project title: CHOICES Extension Funding Brief summary: Social prescribing is a way of connecting people to local groups and activities in their communities that might be good for their health or wellbeing. This is often done through their GP, who directs them to a link worker, who then engages in long conversations with the person about what might be the most appropriate activities. Social prescribing link workers are now part of GP practices across the whole of England. However, despite children and young people experiencing high-levels and increasing mental health need, we know that social prescribing is not being used as much by this group. In some areas, there are specialist children and young people social prescribing services being set up. We conducted a research project, CHOICES, in which we collected data about what these services look like and what sorts of activities young people are being referred to. We want to develop this work into a new, larger project, CHOICES2. In this project, we will engage three groups: academics involved in social prescribing and youth mental health; young people themselves; and practitioners, decision makers and funders who deliver and fund programmes. The work will allow us to design research that better addresses the needs of all these groups and therefore inform services that can have the greatest impact for those that need it. We will use this learning to seek funding for CHOICES2. Start / end dates: June 2024 - November 2025 Email: V.berry@exeter.ac.uk |
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Gretchen Bjornstad - Exeter University Project title: Support for Parent Carers in England (SPaCE) Phase 2: Identifying opportunities for systems improvement to support parent carer mental health Brief summary: Most children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are living at home and being cared for by their parents. The caring role places parent carers at greater risk of mental health problems, as has been confirmed by forthcoming results from the SPaCE project Phase 1. Although families are supported by health, social care, and education services, these services often struggle to fully meet families’ needs. Parent carers must often advocate for their child or fill in service gaps themselves. These challenges may contribute to the increased risk of mental health problems in parent carers. This follow-on study will involve secondary analysis of data from Phase 1 of SPaCE to gain an initial understanding of the impact of systemic factors on parent carer mental health to develop a proposal for a programme further research. In this follow-on study, we aim to explore the systemic factors within and across the health, social care, and education systems that affect parent carer mental health. We plan to design a further programme of work to understand how the system could be improved to better meet the needs of families and prevent negative effects on mental health. Start / end dates: June 2024 - May 2025 Email: g.j.bjornstad@exeter.ac.uk |
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Sarah Cook - Imperial College London Project title: DiAL: Improving mental and physical health outcomes for people living with alcohol use disorder and diabetes: Exploring practitioner and public perspectives on developing preventive interventions Brief summary: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a mental health condition which includes both drinking alcohol in a way that causes harm to health and being dependent on alcohol. Diabetes is a common long-term health condition. Good management and treatment can have a big impact on how diabetes affects peoples’ lives and their long-term health. People with AUD who also have diabetes are more likely to have worse health outcomes from their diabetes, for example, they are more likely to develop mental health problems such as depression and anxiety and more likely to have kidney problems and to have a stroke. Research to prevent poor mental and physical health in people with AUD and diabetes needs to include people with lived experience of both AUD and diabetes and the people who support and care for them. In this project we are aiming to reach out to patients, health care workers and other people who support or care for people with AUD and diabetes to work together on finding ways to improve health for people living with AUD and diabetes. Start / end dates: June 2024 - October 2024 Email: Sarah.cook@imperial.ac.uk |
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Ruth Naughton-Doe - University of York Project title: Reducing loneliness for perinatal Muslim women: co-designing a walking group intervention and the tools to evaluate it Brief summary: Research funded by Phase One of the Three Schools Mental Health Research Programme found that perinatal walking groups could help reduce loneliness. Consultation has shown that Muslim women would be interested in taking part in walking groups. However, we don’t know how these walking groups could be designed to make them as useful and enjoyable as possible for perinatal Muslim women. This is because Muslim communities have been overlooked in research. This study aims to ask these communities how perinatal walking groups could work for them. We will then co-design a walking group to test out in research in the future. Start / end dates: January 2025 - September 2025 Email: Ruth.naughton-doe@york.ac.uk |